The director Robert Icke is the great hope of British theatre. Last week he opened his adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 in New York, just after his Almeida production of Hamlet had transferred to the West End — but still he wasn’t happy. In an interview, he railed against high theatre ticket prices alienating young audiences. “It makes me really angry,” he told Radio 4’s Front Row. “Theatre is so expensive... we have to address this, because otherwise, in 50 or 60 years’ time, there will be no audience and we’re dead.”

The point isn’t a new one, but it’s worth asking: why do theatre tickets, specifically West End ones, seem so expensive? Where does the money go?

In 2016, the average price paid for…

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